page_title: Hamlet (Thomas)
section_title: Act 1
hierarchical_section_title: Hamlet (Thomas) / Detailed description with commentary / Act 1
caption_attribution_description: English: Musical score. Theme of Hamlet's Love for Ophelia from Act 1, Scene 1 (extracted and edited from the piano-vocal score, p. 30).
context_page_description: Hamlet is a grand opera in five acts of 1868 by the French composer Ambroise Thomas, with a libretto by Michel Carré and Jules Barbier based on a French adaptation by Alexandre Dumas, père, and Paul Meurice of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet.
context_section_description: Scene 1
  A hall in the castle of Elsinore (set designed by Auguste Alfred Rubé and Philippe Chaperon).
  1. Introduction, march and chorus. The court celebrates the Coronation of Gertrude, widow of King Hamlet; and her marriage to his brother, Claudius (Courtiers: Que nos chants montent jusqu'aux cieux – "Let our songs rise to the skies"). The new king, Claudius, stands before his throne on a dais, surrounded by the nobles of the court. His court chancellor, Polonius, is nearby. Queen Gertrude enters, approaches the dais, and bows to the King (Courtiers: Salut, ô Reine bien-aimée! – "Greetings, O beloved Queen!"). Polonius hands the King a crown, which he takes and places on her head (The King: Ô toi, qui fus la femme de mon frère – "O you who were my brother's wife"). Gertrude comments in an aside to Claudius that she does not see her son Hamlet. Claudius admonishes her to bear herself as a queen. The courtiers sing of their joy as they celebrate the King and Queen's glorious marriage (Courtiers: Le deuil fait place aux chants joyeux – "Mourning gives way to joyful songs"). The King and Queen leave the hall followed by the courtiers.
  2. Recitative and duet. Prince Hamlet, son of the late King and Gertrude, enters the empty hall. As Hamlet enters, before he begins singing, the low strings in the orchestra play Hamlet's Theme:
  He laments that his mother has remarried scarcely two months since his father's death (Hamlet: Vains regrets! Tendresse éphémère! – "Futile regrets! Ephemeral tenderness!").
  Ophélie enters. Her entrance is accompanied by Ophélie's Theme. According to the German musicologist Annegret Fauser, Ophélie's music contrasts with Hamlet's very regular 8-bar phrase: the 4-bar theme accentuates her nervous character by the use of dotted-note rhythms, a chromatic melody line, and high-range woodwind instruments. The excerpt below ends with 3 bars of florid solo flute music which foreshadows Ophélie's coloratura singing later in the opera.
  She is worried that Hamlet's grief will blight their happiness (Ophélie: Hélas! votre âme – "Alas! your soul") and is concerned that, since Claudius has given Hamlet permission to leave, Hamlet will flee the court. Hamlet protests he cannot make promises of love one day, only to forget them the next. His heart is not that of a woman. Ophélie is distraught at the insult, and Hamlet begs forgiveness.
  The duet affirms their love (Hamlet, Ophélie: Doute de la lumière – "Doubt that the light"). The text of the duet is based on Shakespeare's "Doubt thou the stars are fire", which is part of a letter from Hamlet to Ophelia which Polonius reads to Gertrude and Claudius. The melody of the vocal line in Hamlet's first phrases has been called the Theme of Hamlet's Love for Ophélie and appears several more times in the opera, with particular poignancy near the end of the Mad Scene (see below).
  The three themes which have been introduced in this number are the most important elements which Thomas uses for creating compositional and dramatic unity in the opera. They reoccur, usually in modified form, whenever significant situations relevant to the ideas they represent present themselves, although without having, in the Wagnerian sense, a leitmotivic function.
  3. Recitative and cavatina of Laërte. Ophélie's brother, Laërte, enters. He tells Hamlet and Ophélie that the King is sending him to the court of Norway, and he must leave that very night (unlike in the play where, as Matthew Gurewitsch of Opera News has said, he embarks for "the fleshpots of Paris"). In his cavatina, Laërte asks Hamlet to watch over his sister while he is gone (Laërte: Pour mon pays, en serviteur fidèle – "For my country, in faithful service"). (In the play Laertes warns Ophelia to be wary of Hamlet's intentions.) Fanfares are heard as servants and pages pass at the back. Laërte asks Hamlet and Ophélie to come with him to the banquet, but Hamlet declines. The couple separates, as Laërte and Ophélie leave for the banquet, and Hamlet goes off in the other direction. More fanfares are heard as lords and ladies enter on thei
caption: Theme of Hamlet's Love for Ophelia from act 1. (Piano-vocal score, p. 30)
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